We get all sorts of questions regularly – all sorts! Related to captioning (most of them).

Aiming to answer very quickly to all – to encourage good interest in Captioning Inclusion for all – media and live events – we share one among many replies sent from the CCAC. They genuinely wanted to learn more, and they quickly said thanks :-).

Hope the below is helpful for YOUR own captioning advocacy. Please let us know.

What do we do? CCAC advocates, educates, raises awareness…repeat…repeat…repeat!

The Inquiry: — asked CCAC if there is free captioning (for meetings). It came from the director of a state department …in one of the USA states. (I removed names below).

First their reply today:

Thank you so much for this information, this is very helpful!

And my reply to her two days ago when the query came in on email:

Subject: Re: Need help with captioning meetings

Hello xxxx,

Thanks for your email and interest in all this.

Live Event Captioning is a great idea for your group. Unless the person prefers SL only; and that is up to her/him.

There is no free captioning that we know of. There are all sorts of options – a local CART provider, someone on contract to be on call for any/all meetings, a negotiated contract, or a remote provider if your place has good audio and Internet.

Equal communication access should be in the budget from day one. We hope you are quickly successful.

I believe the (your state) area has a good department for the deaf/hoh or a commission. Talk to them also. They may provide for you?

Live Event Captioning (CART) not only serves a deaf or hard of hearing person. One in 5 people on average, all ages, has a hearing loss. So in your group there may be “hidden” hearing loss in a few others Captioning also serves many others (with tinnitus, language or attention differences, autism, and more). Yet on top of all this, you’d also have a ready transcript (minutes) for everyone (to be discussed with the provider).

By the way, lip reading gives most of us only 35% of any conversation. Some folks who are born deaf and SLusers do better.

Cost depends on so many things – how many hours per week? per month? The nature of the discussion (many technical terms or fairly routine). Find a provider and start talking to them to learn more.

CCAC is not a captioning company.

We do also have a service called CaptionMatch.com where you can place a request to find a provider and get proposals, only after you know there are funds to pay for it.

Machine systems – someone talking into Dragon for example, can be tried but not only are these often not accurate, they fall apart in group conversations as far as our experience goes.

Where did you hear about the CCAC? Is some of this helpful for you?

Keep trying please – everyone, especially those wanting to work and contribute, should have the resources they need for “equal communication access.”